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untried test,—that of ‘hanging a traitor.’
He discharged his venom on Trumbull, describing him as ‘a traitor,’ and invoking on him the penalties of treason, even that of death.
The next month he again took part in the debate, speaking twice, with an interval of ten days between his speeches.1 The main point of his argument was that the Free State party in Kansas was a treasonable body.
To the epithet of ‘black Republicans,’ he now added the vulgar insinuation that they were for the amalgamation of the black and white races.
This drew from Wilson the retort that such taunts were ‘the emanations of low and vulgar minds, . . . usually coming from men with the odor of amalgamation upon them.’
He, as well as Collamer, administered a rebuke to Douglas for the coarse epithets which he uniformly applied to his opponents.
Wilson, resenting his insolence, described him and his coadjutors as ‘mere lieutenants’ of Atchison, ‘the chieftain of the border ruffian Democracy.’
Similar scenes occurred from time to time in the debate.
Clay of Alabama imputed to Hale the practice of seeking the society of Southern senators and fawning upon them,2 and signified in the coarsest language that he should inflict personal chastisement on him, as he (Hale) was not subject to the code of the duellist.3 Butler of South Carolina made no long speech, but he was irrepressible whenever the Kansas question came up in any shape, and as usually with him talked loosely and without premeditation.
In the debate on the memorial for the admission of Kansas, April 10, he was offensive in his references to Seward, and the latter declined for that reason to recognize him by a reply.
As well in the House as in the Senate the partisans of slavery often assailed Massachusetts and her people, particularly the Emigrant Aid Company, as responsible for all the disorders in Kansas, as disturbers of the national peace, and instigators of rebellion.4
1 April 4 and 14. Sumner. at Douglas's call upon him for an answer, condemned the clause of the Topeka Constitution which excluded free negroes from voting.
2 May 2. The threat of social ostracism came frequently during the session from slaveholding members. The idea was in the Southern mind in Calhoun's time, and was approved by him. (John Allison's speech in the House, July 11. 1856.) Sumner first personally encountered it in Badger's reply to him, Aug. 26, 1852. Ante, p. 300.
3 He said Hale was ‘ambitious of a kicking,’ and that ‘his imagination sported over suits, costs. and damages’ as compensation: and that he ‘skulked behind petticoats on the plea of non-combatancy for protection.’ etc.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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